It is not a matter of being dissatisfied with our own lives, but it is more a curiosity about the road not travled.

But Anbar acknowledged it would be quite a leap to presume the next step is discovering alien life.
"It is more the principle of the thing," he said. "We are very influenced by life as we know it and it gets very difficult to know, how far can we push that? How different can life be and still work?

His firm is behind the avant-garde Dongbu Finance Center, a block more sculpture than skyscraper.